2012 State of Mobility Survey

It seems like just a few years ago that the Internet completely changed the way we do business. And now we are seeing it again, with mobile devices as the catalyst. Once mostly forbidden by IT, smartphones are now being used by hundreds of millions of employees throughout the world to access corporate information to keep up in today’s 24/7 business world. Symantec commissioned the 2012 State of Mobility survey to gauge how organizations are coping with this trend. The survey included 6,275 organizations—from small businesses to large enterprises—across 43 countries.

The survey shows that we have reached a tipping point in the business use of mobile devices. Most organizations are making line-of-business application available. They are also developing custom applications, and even making plans to create corporate app stores for employees to download approved software. All this points to the goal of improving business agility. Businesses want to improve efficiency and increase workplace effectiveness, as well as get things done quicker, and mobility offers them the chance to do that.

But there’s a price. Organizations are aware of the potential dangers mobility can pose, rating it highest among IT initiatives in risk. They’re worried about losing devices, data loss and malware infecting the corporate network through smartphones and tablets. Businesses are losing a significant amount of money to incidents relating to mobile devices yet despite these costs, organizations feel the risks are worth the benefits, and they are working to implement security measures to rein in these costs and keep their corporate information safe.